The review of David Reardon's book on
the psychological effects of abortion on women (March 1991 Perspectives)
renewed my amazement at evangelicals' highly selective concern with contemporary
social issues. Some may remember that in 1987 the Reagan administration asked
then Surgeon General C. Everett Koop to prepare a report on the (presumably
negative) psychological side-effects of having an abortion. After months of
stalling, Koop, whose anti-abortion stance cannot be questioned, finally
admitted that he couldn't produce such a report because he couldn't find any
reliable medical evidence of lasting damage.

That some women who've experienced
abortion have suffered psychological distress cannot be disputed. Such women
should receive the counseling they need to deal with their trauma. Let's be
careful, however, not to use post-abortion distress as another reactionary
excuse to ban abortions. Those worried about the abuse of women by contemporary
abortion practices forget that banning abortions will lead to greater suffering
and death through illegal back-alley abortions. The lack of concern for
tomorrow's maimed and dead women leads me to think that those voicing concern
about "suffering women" either don't really care about women's health
or are seriously lacking in perspective.

Like the evolution/creation debate, the
abortion controversy divides evangelicals and has led to disingenous
intepretations of scripture on both sides. A realist (cynic?) realizes that the
law will never stop women from getting abortions. If anti-abortion evangelicals
are serious about stopping abortions they must persuade individual women to keep
their children or give them up for adoption. Crisis pregnancy services, love,
and financial and emotional support can go a long way in this regard. What I
fear is that most anti-abortionists would rather forego this difficult,
grass-roots approach for a legistlated, top-down ban which serves to alienate
women and to cast doubt on the motivation of anti-abortionists. I believe many
evangelicals to be motivated less by a concern for social justice than by the
desire to see the world conform to their image of it, and this with the least
amount of effort on their part. Legislating a world view is easier than
persuasion. I say this because evangelicals have historically allied themselves
with the status quo, and have never been at the vanguard of social justice
issues. The church had to be dragged kicking and screaming into repudiating
slavery, into civil rights for women, minorities and the handicapped, and into
caring for the environment.

It also surprised me that two pages
from the review expressing great concern for women abused by abortion is the
review of a book (by Payne and Payne) approving the use of weapons of mass
destruction under the blanket of the just war theory. Is this a little
schizophrenic or what? Whether first-trimester unborns are soul-endowed human
beings is scripturally an open question. That already born people of whatever
nationality or political ideology are living souls created individually in our
God's image is eminently clear. Killing one unborn is wrong, but slaughtering
millions is part of the geopolitical game.

An examination of armed human conflict
reveals most of the geopolitical spoils of war to be short-lived. After a
period, a former ally becomes an enemy and vice-versa. Peacemaking and
non-violent methods for conflict resolution are neglected. If a cost-benefit
analysis shows conventional war to be wanting, why should adding nuclear weapons
to the arsenal change anything? Knowing that no lasting peace will come until
Jesus, our Prince of Peace returns, how can his people advocate the use of
weapons which have not made our planet safer, but many times more dangerous?

I believe it was Gandhi who said that
the only people who don't believe Jesus and his message were non-violent are
Christians. Fighting abortion while okaying nuclear genocide suggests that we
have not seriously examined both the motivation behind and the consequences of
our social and political positions.